Review: Heart, humor clash in ‘A.C.O.D.’

“A.C.O.D.”

Rating: PG-13

When: Opens Friday

Where: Landmark Hillcrest

Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes

★★½

Divorce is no laughing matter. Actually, that’s not true at all. Often, divorce can be very funny, because it reduces adults to unbelievably petty, childlike behavior over the most ridiculous subjects. Of course, this is usually the case when one is on the outside looking in. For most families, divorce is more than just disruptive — when there are kids involved, in can be downright scarring.

However, when the new film “A.C.O.D.” opens, Carter (Adam Scott) would tell you that even though his parents, Hugh (Richard Jenkins) and Melissa (Catherine O’Hara), had an absolutely savage divorce when he was just 9, which was followed by ill-advised subsequent marriages, he turned out just fine, thank you very much. And on the surface, he’s right. He’s a successful restaurant owner; he’s got a great girlfriend in Lauren (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and the work he did with his therapist Dr. Judith (Jane Lynch) helped him successfully put all that toxic energy behind him.

But when his younger brother Trey (Clark Duke) gets engaged to a woman he’s known just a few months, Carter finds himself once again caught in his parents’ crossfire, and when he returns to Dr. Judith to try to sort things out, he discovers the work he did as a child was actually part of a state-funded study, and now that he’s an adult, she wants to follow up and see what kind of a person he has become. All of this leads him to confront his parents, in an effort to get them to come together and support Trey in his upcoming nuptials, a move that has unintended and seriously lasting consequences.

Director Stu Zicherman co-wrote the screenplay with Ben Karlin, who writes for “Modern Family” and has a long history with Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show.” “A.C.O.D.” — which stands for Adult Children of Divorce, by the way — has a sitcom feel to it. It’s often very funny, and tries to have some heart, too. But it doesn’t straddle that line all too well, and despite its wonderful cast (Amy Poehler and Ken Howard are also in the mix), it eventually pulls its emotional punches, and the result is that it’s an enjoyable but ultimately forgettable little movie.

Some of that is because the real humor is far more entertaining than the drama Carter is experiencing. The best moments are when wily veterans Jenkins and O’Hara are at each other. But it’s not their movie. And at the core of it all, Carter is right, pretty much about everything. His brother is absolutely rushing into marriage. His parents are both selfish, self-involved jerks who never took responsibility for the way their own actions affected others. He may not be the only adult in this story, but he is most certainly the only grown-up.

Scott is talented and funny, but while the humor of “A.C.O.D.” is its strength, the heart it tries to offer up feels like it’s drawn with a crayon, though it’s impossible to say whether the child that drew it is an adult.

Anders Wright writes about movies for U-T San Diego. Email him at anderswright@gmail.com